Just Us Against the World
by andyjay18
Summary: Sequel to my previous fic "Quentin Burkhardt". AU...or IS it?


The little salmon-haired boy sat there on the muddy riverbank, drawing a crude yet recognizable pigtailed figure in the dirt with a stick.

"Onee-chan…" he said, his lips dropping into a pout.

Hot tears came again to Junko Kaname's eyes and her throat started closing up again. This had been happening quite often over the past month. She had always been a "strong woman", the ideal feminist role model, holding the role of her family's breadwinner as a successful business executive. Ever since college she had been beaten over the head with the idea that a Strong Woman couldn't cry or show too much emotion; or they at least had to keep it to a minimum. She hadn't pursued her career solely to tell the world she was woman, hear her roar, but because she'd always been good with numbers and business. Likewise, she hadn't suppressed her tears in public solely to release them into numerous nightly cocktails, at least not on purpose.

But the tears were frequently bubbling up to the surface lately, following the death of her daughter Madoka at the hands of Quentin "Q.B." Burkhardt, the "Monster of Mitakihara" or the "Magical Girl Killer", or any combination thereof, depending on which tabloids you read.

Quentin, originally from Colebook, Connecticut, was a former mechanic at nearby Yokota U.S. Air Force Base who had quit the USAF some time ago and settled in Mitakihara after becoming a resident alien and finding work as an auto mechanic. Despite quitting, by all accounts it seemed like he had never left the military, as he always seemed to maintain a cool, soldierly disposition. He always handled the job with the utmost precision, and unlike too many auto mechanics, he only ever focused on the customer's first demand such as an oil change, tire rotation or manifold replacement. And he never, ever overcharged. All the Internet reviews for his shop had at least four or five stars. The only "complaints" he received were about his rather cold, humorless demeanor; his assistants noted that he hardly ever addressed even them. However, some customers had praised him for his laconic, no-nonsense attitude, saying it made it easier to entrust him with their vehicles and comparing him to their doctors or even an expert surgeon. Funny how it always seems to be the quiet, nice ones.

No reviews noted his beady yet piercing red eyes, or the small catlike smile that always seemed to be on his face. But those petty details of appearance weren't relevant.

Sometimes, he had told the police, he had followed local adolescent girls to the mall food court, and once their backs were turned he would dose their drinks with LSD or ketamine. Other times he took a more direct approach and gave them the old chloroform-soaked rag while walking home from school alone. Either way, they were all fed steady diets of hallucinogens as they were added to his "collection" in a former farmhouse on the city outskirts.

Madoka and her best friend Sayaka Miki had last been seen alive about two months ago, leaving for just another ordinary school day. They were planning to go to the mall afterwards.

Quentin told them they were magical girls helping to save humanity from despair, and dressed them up in a growing collection of magical girl costumes as he did things to them that Junko didn't want to think about. Some of the costumes were clearance-sale leftovers from Halloween supply warehouses, some were elaborate cosplay ensembles from Akihabara and other otaku meccas throughout Japan, with price tags around 10,000 yen. Police eventually found a trove of magical girl manga, DVD's, figurines, posters and other merchandise throughout his otherwise spotless apartment back in town; just about every series from _Cutey Honey _to _Sailor Moon_ to _Card Captor Sakura _to _Nanoha_.

When the farmhouse where he kept his "collection" became too crowded, Quentin murdered some and shipped others to a recently busted human trafficking ring. Only about 14 girls had been located in brothels in Southeast Asia and Russia; the rest were presumably still being digested within the bowels of the world's child-sex network. He vowed to reveal the locations of the murdered girls' bodies only on condition of a reduced sentence and extradition to America. Police were searching area landfills, lakes and forests, but to no avail so far. Sayaka had been one sad exception to that sad rule; her body was discovered in the rail yard just next to the train station.

When asked why he'd done it, Quentin cryptically answered, "I simply had needs. And needs are different from emotions." (Serial killers always seemed to give cryptic answers to the question of "why". Did they think Quentin Burkhardt would be any different?) When asked how many he had killed, he said he hadn't been counting.

Needless to say, the shit hadn't just hit the fan, a dump truck load of shit had been poured into a jet engine.

The self-appointed moral guardians throughout Japan (as well as South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and the Philippines) were calling for more regulation of the anime and manga industries, as well as purchasing restrictions. A minor member of the Tokyo city council submitted a bill outlawing all "suggestive content" in anime and manga; unlike many similar previous bills following the "I know obscenity when I see it" maxim, this one gave a laundry list of tropes and clichés—including magical girl transformations. The bill wasn't expected to pass, but the media devoured the story with gusto.

Some production executives and manga artists, as well as otaku-catering storekeepers, had received death threats. Out in Yamaguchi Prefecture, one member of a high school manga club was beaten so badly by some members of the basketball team that he required hospitalization.

At the other end of the political spectrum the debates over the continuing American military presence in Japan, as well as over immigration, immigrant status and employment legality, had flared up with a vengeance. Few seriously believed Japan would impose its own Hayes Code on anime or manga anytime soon. People (not least Mitakihara's large foreign-born population) were taking much more seriously the several bills being proposed in the Diet to drastically limit the passageways to Japanese citizenship for foreigners, or even resident alien status. Supposedly the bills had the support of some powerful Diet and committee members. Meanwhile large tent cities had grown outside the gates of U.S. military installations, businesses catering to them, and even the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo, populated by increasingly aggressive protestors. Most were content to peacefully chant slogans and hoist banners and signs, but just yesterday there had been a trash-throwing incident at the gates of Yokosuka Naval Base. An autoworkers' union had joined in sympathy at the Embassy, also using this moment to complain about the company opening _another_ factory in America (in one of those anti-union "right to work" states, no less).

Just last week an unexploded pipe bomb was discovered outside Kadena Air Force Base on Okinawa.

Junko sighed and wiped her eyes. The typically warm relationship between America and Japan was cooling, and the nation's placid, "harmonious" nature was coming undone. This was likely to be expected; the nation had suffered a grievous social shock, and some temporary collective discombobulation was normal, as with last year's earthquake and tsunami. And of course there would always be some folks with axes to grind over the societal implications and questions. Look at America after 9/11, surprise surprise. But would all this sound and fury bring back her little girl, or Sayaka, or any of the hundreds of others? Would it restore the innocence and psyches of the lucky few who had managed to escape, but with horrific mental wounds?

Of course not. Magical girls, anime, manga, the U.S. military, immigration and non-union labor were as much to blame for Quentin Burkhardt as the Beatles, hippies and the music industry were for Charles Manson. Just two sad, sorry little sociopaths with God complexes and horrific fetishes.

And just because she wasn't bawling now, as Sayaka's parents and Kazuko had done, didn't mean Junko Kaname wasn't partially dead inside. But she had to keep up the façade of a Strong Woman.

Junko noticed some small tears on Tatsuya's cheeks as he finished his drawing of his sister. He understood what had happened of course (his parents had naturally spared him the X-rated bits, but he knew that Madoka wouldn't be able to help him wake up Mommy anymore), but she hadn't seen him crying much. He had just started preschool; were his classmates already trying to impress upon him that boys don't cry…just like…Strong…Women…oh God…

"Tatsuya-chan!" she sobbed, her voice shattering like another dropped cocktail glass. "Please come here! Mommy needs you right now!" The four-year-old obediently ran to his mother, his own face starting to crumple. Junko scooped him up into her lap and held him tight tight tight. She stared directly into his watering eyes. "Please, please promise me you'll always be the same _good_ little boy you are now. Don't keep secrets. Don't hold _anything_ back; your feelings, your tears, _anything_. I-it's just the two of us against the world now." She wiped her nose and gulped. "When people hold back their feelings too long, they forget how to feel. And those people are the worst people in the world." Both for him and herself, she started rocking with him in her lap. "Sometimes this world just seems so damn horrible. There are still so many bad people out there…but there are still good people too. Maybe everything is just rotting, and we're just sitting around waiting for God to say 'Screw this' and pull the plug. But you know what? As long as you can make just one person happy, as long as you can shine one little bit of light into the dark, you've made a difference."

"I…I know…" replied a cool feminine voice, coming from their right. The voice subsequently dissolved into sobs.

Junko looked up and wiped away her tears to see a tall, dark-haired girl about Madoka's age, kneeling on the ground beside the bench and sobbing into her hands. Her hair was tied up with a very familiar looking red ribbon.

"Wh-who are you?" she asked the girl. "I could almost swear I've seen you somewhere…"

The girl looked up, revealing a deeply lined, strained face and cold blue eyes that stared past her. "I'm Homura Akemi. I…I saw you at your daughter's funeral. I was her best friend while we were trapped at…'Q.B.'s' house."

Of course. She had been one of the lucky few who managed to escape from Quentin's rape dungeon, whereupon she staggered into the nearest police station as he was busy stabbing Madoka. Now Junko did recall seeing her in the front row during the funeral, alongside the other survivors.

"The first few days I thought I was going to die. We all did. But Madoka never gave up hope, even though I could tell she was the most scared. I needed her, just as she needed me, especially after he killed Mami and then Kyoko. Then after Sayaka just gave up…and just let him…use her up until she was gone…" Homura choked back another sob. "Then she decided to lead us out of…that _place_."

Junko opened her arms. Homura walked in for a hug, and responded with the purple-haired woman. "I can't thank you enough," she said. "W-would you like to come over to our house for dinner? My husband makes excellent pot-stickers."

"I'd appreciate that," Homura replied. "It would make my day just a little brighter, despite all this…mess."

Still uttering sobs, but not as harshly, the middle-aged mother, the teenage girl and the little boy all huddled together on the bench as if for warmth. Wasn't Homura an orphan, according to the news stories? She wouldn't make an exact fit for the gaping hole in Junko's heart, but she could tell the girl herself wanted, _needed_ someone strong and loving to stand by her, if only until she became a legal adult. There was also Tatsuya's loneliness to consider.

But any formal decisions could wait. Dinner probably wouldn't be ready for another hour and a half or so. For now, they all just needed to add a few precious rays of sunshine to their stormy skies.

Quentin Burkhardt_ was conceived and written out of several glasses of vodka, accompanied by some of the Doors' and Pink Floyd's finest. The result scared me to be honest (especially after I sobered up, heh), so I guess I intended this as sort an atonement. Maybe it's just the way my addled brain works, but _PMMM _did make me think about child abduction as I watched it. I wrote a Poison Oak Epileptic Tree about that on TV Tropes, and someone else added that the show could be a metaphor for human trafficking. So yeah, I thought there could very well be a story there. The main reason I didn't delete it in disgust was because I thought it was at least original; I haven't yet seen any story quite like it on this site. You could say it's a deconstruction of a deconstruction (that is, if you consider _PMMM _to be a deconstruction). I'm not exactly an expert on the grim subject of human trafficking, but I did make an effort to handle it with some sensitivity. Whether or not I succeeded is up to you, dear reader._

_I was debating on whether or not to keep Homura's scene at the end. I decided to leave it in just to remind the reader that yes, this is still a _PMMM _fic, so I wanted both a parallel to the original story and some knowledge that in this world too, Madoka's death was not in vain. I also thought the idea of her cuddling with Junko and Tatsuya tied in with the theme that even if this world is a festering hellhole, as long as we can bring some joy into at least one person's life, we can make it a little brighter. Do you think I should've left it out, or that it was an essential part?_

_I also apologize if you thought the "big picture" stuff in the first half was too long and over-the-top. I've been reading _Sayonara Zetsubou-sensei_ like mad lately._

_One last thing; one of my cousins grew up near Colebrook, Connecticut. He thought it was quite a creepy little place._


End file.
